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ttddbg - Time Travel Debugging IDA plugin

⚠️ Attention IDA 8 users: using ttddbg with IDA 8 require a work-around for the moment, see Known issues

This plugin adds a new debugger to IDA which supports loading Time Travel Debugging traces generated using WinDBG Preview.

ttddbg main window

This plugin supports both x86 and x64 traces, and by extension IDA and IDA64.

Installation

Installing the plugin can be done using the installer from the releases page. The installer will automatically install the required dependencies, provided you have a copy of WinDBG Preview installed.

Usage

Once installed, you can use the plugin by selecting the ttddbg debugger in the IDA interface, and specifying your *.run file as the "Application". For help on generating a .run file, see HOWTO_TIME_TRAVEL.md.

ttddbg debugger

ttdbg debugger setup

Icon Action
backward_icon Go to previous breakpoint
full run icon Simulate a full run of the program
single_step_icon Single step backward (RIP - one instruction)
timeline_icon Manage the timeline of interesting events (Threads Created/Terminated, Module Loaded/Unloaded, Exceptions, Custom)
traced functions icon Manage the currently traced functions
trace events icon View trace events

Function tracing feature

Since version 1.1.0, ttddbg supports a new feature we call "function tracing". While in the debugging view, it is possible to mark functions for tracing by right-clicking them in the Functions or Module interfaces. Once a function is traced, any call to this function, and any return statement, will be recorded in the new Trace events window.

Using the function information from your reverse engineering work, ttddbg also extracts the parameters passed to the function as well as its return value. Symbols are automatically pretty-printed based on the information available to IDA, such as enum values.

Known issues

  • Using IDA Pro 8.2 and this plugin leads to a crash when entering the debugger. This issue appears to be caused by an incompatibility between this plugin and the picture_search plugin, which is new in IDA 8. Removing picture_search.dll and picture_search64.dll from the plugins folder temporarily fixes this issue. The problem has been raised to Hex-Rays.

Building the project

Prerequisites:

  • A copy of the IDA SDK (available from the download center using your IDA Pro credentials)
  • A copy of TTDReplay.dll (usually in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\[WinDBG folder]\amd64\ttd\)
  • A copy of TTDReplayCPU.dll (usually in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\[WinDBG folder]\amd64\ttd\)

And let CMAKE do its magic!

$ git clone git@github.com:airbus-cert/ttddbg.git --recursive
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..\ttddbg -DIDA_SDK_SOURCE_DIR=[PATH_TO_IDA_SDK_ROOT_FOLDER] -DCPACK_PACKAGE_INSTALL_DIRECTORY="IDA Pro 7.7"
$ cmake --build . --target package --config release

Developer corner

To create a dev solution:

$ git clone git@github.com:airbus-cert/ttddbg.git --recursive
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..\ttddbg -DIDA_SDK_SOURCE_DIR=[PATH_TO_IDA_SDK_ROOT_FOLDER] -DBUILD_TESTS=ON

Credits and references

Greetz to commial for his work on ttd-bindings!